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"Sarah Palin, do you guys really like her?"

My dad's doctor asked me this a couple of weeks ago. His smile seemed to
shout, "Are you guys crazy?" I had taken my 94-year-old Republican
father to see him several times, but politics never came up. Did the doc
really want to go there? It went something like this:

"What's the problem with her?" I said.

"Well, she's, she's "

"Stupid?"

"All right."

"Really? Why, because she isn't as glib or articulate as you elites
like? She didn't answer Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson the way President
Obama would have?"

"Yes  I'm one of those elites."

"How stupid do you have to be to take on the establishment in Alaska and
win? How stupid do you have to be to have  at the time Republican
presidential candidate John McCain picked her  an 84 percent
popularity rating in Alaska? She had more executive experience than
Obama."

"Well, she doesn't come across as prepared."

"I don't know what qualities you look for. But I'll tell you what counts
for me: character, competence and vision. She's likable. She has a
strong, stable marriage with a down-to-earth husband. She has
convictions that I agree with. Government too big? Check. People taxed
too much? Check. Stay on offense in the war on terror? Check. For me,
what's not to like?"

"I'd worry about her judgment."

"Do you worry about Vice President Joe Biden's?"

"No, why should I?"

"Where do I start? Put aside all the gaffes. He's the one who, during
their debate, cited the wrong part of the Constitution when asked to
describe the role of the vice president. As a new member of Congress, he
voted to cut off funding to the South Vietnamese. This helped lead to
the slaughter of millions in that country and Cambodia. Biden routinely
challenged President Ronald Reagan on fighting the Cold War, even though
even some Reagan haters now believe Reagan's policies helped speed up
the fall of the Soviet Union. Biden opposed the first Gulf War. Wrong.
He supported the Iraq War, then argued that Iraq should be divided into
three parts, then opposed the surge  said it wouldn't work  and then
opposed the war that he earlier voted for. Wrong."

"C'mon, you're entitled to change your opinion."

"You are. But we are talking about judgment. And Palin has taken a
consistent and defensible position on the war. You may disagree, but at
least she's clear. And the surge did work. Iraq might just make it.
We'll see what the Middle East is like in 20 years. So far this month
(of December), zero coalition combat deaths in Iraq. Pretty impressive."

"Yeah, it is."

"And I don't know how you feel about abortion. But Palin is, as I'm sure
you know, strongly pro-life. She learns she's pregnant with a child with
Down syndrome. Even many pro-lifers would have aborted that child. Palin
didn't. That's talking the talk and walking the walk, and yes, 'us guys'
think it's admirable."

"I, I don't know whether she's bright enough."

"And a lot of people on the left thought President George W. Bush was
dumb, too. Are you one of them?

"I admit it."

"Did you know he had better grades in college than Al Gore?"

"He did?"

"Did you know he scored higher on his military IQ test than did John
Kerry?"

"No."

"Did you know he got a higher SAT score than did Rhodes scholar Bill
Bradley?"

"No."

"Obama is clearly smart," I said.

"Yeah, and he doesn't turn people off. He's brilliant."

"OK. And it took Obama nearly three months to decide how to respond to
the request for more troops in Afghanistan. In making important
decisions  things that matter  a president spends more time than it
takes to answer a reporter's question on what the 'Bush Doctrine' means.
Oh, and about turning people off, Palin's popularity is now about equal
to Obama's."

"Well, I just feel more comfortable with him."

"Would you feel comfortable with him if he were a low-tax,
low-regulation, limited-government, strong-national-security Republican
 same guy, different views?"

"Probably not."

"OK, then this is really about ideology."

"Well " he laughed.

"Were you OK with bailing out all those banks?"

"No, but Bush did it, too."

"He shouldn't have, but how we got there is about government butting
into the housing business. What about bailing out GM?"

"No."

"Do you think the stimulus package truly 'created or saved' a bunch of
jobs?"

"No."

"Are you OK with ObamaCare?"

Dad's doctor suddenly turned into Mr. Hyde. He teed off on the
government dictating how he should practice medicine. He predicted that
costs would go up, not down. He predicted that quality would go down,
not up. He talked about the importance of the profit incentive.

"Sarah Palin feels the same way you do."

As for my dad, some swelling, occasional dizziness  not bad for a
94-year-old. Thank you for asking.

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